In your life, people will recommend many TV shows, movies, songs and books, and you’ll brush them off. I’ll give you one recommendation – if you’re a young woman in college, you need to watch “Girls.”
“Girls” is a coming-of-age comedy following four friends navigating post-graduation life in New York City, created by and starring Lena Dunham. She stars as the main character, Hannah. Allison Williams plays her best friend, Marnie; Jemima Kirke plays Jessa; Zosia Mamet plays Shoshanna to complete the girl group.
The show ran from 2012-2017 and is credited with propelling Adam Driver, who played Hannah’s toxic boyfriend Adam Sackler, into stardom. “Girls” has an 89% on Rotten Tomatoes and won two Primetime Emmy Awards, a true cultural phenomenon of the 2010s.
There’s been a recent resurgence of “Girls” thanks to young Generation Z women discovering it for the first time. If you haven’t hopped on yet, consider this your sign.
The main appeal of “Girls” is its incredibly raw and vulnerable delivery. While many label it a revamped, hipster version of the 1990s' “Sex and the City,” I’d argue it’s more realistic for a large portion of the population. The New York City of “Girls” was far different from Carrie Bradshaw's New York portrayal. This show is “Sex and the City,” with truly damaged and complex characters that make watching “Girls” an experience teetering between “hate-watching” and regular TV consumption.
Hannah wears some of the ugliest, ill-fitting clothes you’ve ever seen, which Dunham did on purpose. Her character is also incredibly selfish, and as an aspiring writer, she frequently does bad things for “the sake of the story.”
Marnie is a complete narcissist, and in the same way women compare themselves to the characters of “Sex and the City,” nobody wants to be a Marnie. Shoshanna is the youngest – silly and written to be “comedic relief,” meaning anybody who calls themselves a Shoshanna isn’t one. Jessa is avoidant, self-destructive and without spoilers, a boyfriend stealer.
None of the four main girls are a perfectly good person. They’re bad friends, they’re bad lovers, they’re mean to themselves and their parents. These are called “morally ambiguous characters,” who “blur the line between good and bad.” They're more realistic and interesting than traditional protagonists.
People should consume media with complex characters. It’s comforting and relatable to see women with real problems make real mistakes on-screen because it gives female characters and viewers more honesty and depth, serving as representation to reshape female media stereotypes.
Unlike heavy-hitting, intense TV shows, nothing really happens in “Girls.” Sure, it feels dramatic and all-consuming while you watch it. Still, most of the plot points are mundane aspects of everyday life, like “hook-ups, break-ups, the quest for employment,” making it incredibly relatable and uncomfortable at times. The show contains nudity, sex, mental health issues, abuse, addiction and sexual assault.
The show’s power lies in elevating these vulnerable and painful situations, reminding us how transformative the chaos of everyday life can be.
As much as I love “Girls” and recommend it to everyone, it’s impossible to discuss it without mentioning the controversies of the show creator and actress, Dunham, both surrounding the show and separate from it. She has faced backlash for defending a producer of “Girls” who was accused of sexual assault.
Additionally, “Girls” has an all-white cast despite taking place in New York City, one of the most diverse cities in the country.
This may have been deliberate to reflect the privileged bubble the women lived in, but I think it’s more of a reflection of Dunham’s life experiences and who she truly is.
Dunham wrote what she knew, which was a world of privilege, a nepotistic baby herself who cast other nepotistic babies for her show. This obviously eliminates relatability for a lot of people. Loving “Girls” means understanding two truths at once– it’s a groundbreaking, artistic cultural phenomenon, but it’s also deeply flawed.
Life is sad and hard and confusing. “Girls” encapsulates this, packaging the hardships of everyday life into a masterpiece every young woman should watch. The show is “filled with highs and lows, beautiful and ugly people,” a look into the dark underbelly of life as a young woman. It’s messy, imperfect and uncomfortable, which makes it essential, and should be your next watch.
Abby Shriver is a freshman studying journalism at Ohio University. Please note the opinions expressed in this column do not represent those of The Post. Want to talk to Abby about their column? Email/message them at as064024@ohio.edu / @abbyshriver_
